Fixing to poles - please advise

[Suppressed Poet]

Tought I would post here before fixskill today when everyone starts asking questions.

I am giantman going from sword and board to a lance build. I'm wearing some 5x hcp fusion augmented chain and just using my sonic lance. He is currently 54 trains. I have acquired enough in enhancives to swing the lance in 5 seconds.

I played with the trainer and this is what I came up with for training. I am going by memory but it should be acurate.

60 ranks in armor use
1x PF
1x Dodge
2x Polearm
1x CMAN
10 ranks in MOC
1x-1 HP
35 bard songs
26 MnE
34 ranks in air lore
25 ranks in telepathy
20 ranks in climb
20 ranks in swim

Tell me what you think. Will post below why I trained this way and future short term goals.

[Suppressed Poet]

Forgot to mention he is GoS and has a wizard to provide thurfels and strength.

When I was looking at the trainer I was 53. I went with that many air lore ranks because it was just enough for the -1 sec reduction for 1035.

Here are my future goals:

Have 430 at 58 trains

Have 1040 at 63 trains

After 63 I am going to stop spell research to bring back down to 1x. With those points I am dumping everything into air lore. I'm trying to bring that up to 70 ranks by 70 for the next -1 sec with 1035 and sonic flares.

I want to also try to fit in bringing PF to about 1.5x and get MOC to 25 ranks for FoF over the next 10-20 levels.

I need to train at some point mental sharing for 1040..but can't decide where or when to fit that in.

Once my spells go back to 1x, I'll bring bard songs up to 50. I'll probably then continue MnE until cap.

[Suppressed Poet]

And last...my cman points..I want to try out charge. Feint has been useful, but I can always 1005. At my fix skills I'm looking at 5 ranks in charge and 2 ranks in Cdef.

[Ricer]

-1 second RT with Tonis is 30 air lore. 33 gets you 3% higher chance of the second flare with 1012 .. 31 gets you 1 extra dodge .. Probably could stick to 30 for a while though. You can get by with less than 1x dodge training for a while. This is especially true with wizard spells. I personally would go over 1x PF right now, probably try for 1.5x by taking away from dodging and nix MoC for the time being. Sigil of power is very helpful with maintaining Tonis. 80ish seconds of -2 RT and 30 dodge is pretty bad ass. I'd want to use it the full hunt.

[Suppressed Poet]

Yeah, I went with 33 air lore looking at it as I thought that would be a good stoping point for it. Originally I thought to continue training one rank per level until 63, and then go nuts on air lore ranks to bring it up to full 1x by 70 trains.

Skimping on dodge is a thought. The thing is though, my main hunting is harbingers and mtks. Neither of them have manuevers, but I definately need defence. I have about 100 stamina and have some enhancive stamina recovery GoS leg greaves at 1x PF, which is ample for sigil of power and my other GoS sigils. Of course I can always use more though.. I really don't understand the whole redux thing, and just assume I don't have any.

Where would you suggest stoping at dodge and any idea how much defence I'd lose from stance offensive?

Keep in mind, this is the first character I have ever done a two handeder with. Sounds stupid and crazy, but it's the truth. I honestly don't know what to expect. I figure I'm going to take a substantial loss in DS compared to 1x shield and dodge using a sonic large shield with the penalty of a buckler. On the other hand, hopefully I won't be plinking anymore. As a strong giant, a small enhancive boost to polearms, and 425 + my sonic...I should have a very nice AS for my level.

[Suppressed Poet]

Also important to note, my goal is to switch to minotaurs at 63. I'll be sticking with harbingers and mtks until then. PF is going to be essential traing for manuever defence at that point I would imagine. And I'd love to use tonis as much as possible. Right now I've been using it for small (2 or 3) swarms.

Also...410 would be nice. Guess I should bring armor use to 90 ranks, but how important is that? ARGHH!!! So many training choices and never enough points.

[DaCapn]

I didn't read anything other than your training plan but you should really compute the TP trade-off of 430 vs your current training. If you drop enough dodge ranks for 4 MnE, your AS, DS, CS, and ETD will all be higher than your current build. A lot of people seem to miss this sort of thing.

[Ricer]

You need 75 air lore ranks for the 2nd additional second RT off with Tonis. Training dodge at .75x should be sufficient if you are stance dancing and utilizing 1005 and feint. As a Bard I think having more spells/songs is more important than worrying about redux. When I polearmed I 1.25x'd spell ranks and trained PF similarly. I think I was around .66x dodge and I did great til 58 when I went pure. Swinging a lance you will have much better stuns/kills than OHE, and you should have a more offensive mindset while hunting.

[Suppressed Poet]

Thanks for the advice. I'll look at bringing dodge down to .75 X and see what else that can afford me. It would be nice to have 430 right now. Maybe Ill drop air lore down to 30 ranks to help get there. And with the physical points I'll bring PF up a bit.

Do most lance bards use 410 regularly? Im barely at the agidex for a 5 second swing, so mstriking is out. I don't like MOC strikes over 6-7 seconds under any conditions.

[Suppressed Poet]

Tweaking that I guess I could get 430 now at 54. Over the next 5 levels or less Ill get bard songs to 1040. Then at that point should I stop spell training for awhile and focus on air lore and PF? At what point is it recomended to bring dodge back up to 1x?

[Whirlin]

The bonuses to Sonic Weapons are NOT breakpoints... So going from 32-33 air lore ranks won't result in +3% flare rate, but rather each rank from 25 to 36 will yield ... what is that? .3% or so? 32-33 is not netting anymore than 25-26 was.

410 is not incredibly effective due to hindrance from Aug Chain. You're better off using 1005 a couple times. 1001 is great against swarms also... but not really disabling.

My Bard is 56... Honestly, I don't have nearly the mana to use 1035 effectively. I know it's cool, but not sure why you're in such a rush to unlock it. Right now, my bottleneck to further uphunting is my DS, I use 1014, have 430 already, a pocket wizard, and am in COL... so my DS should have about 25 over yours. I wouldn't recommend dropping dodge, because the more DS, the better, but rather tone back the Bard Ranks until you unlock 430, and then unlock 1035 at 58.

If you're not going to MStrike, I wouldn't go any higher than 10 ranks... not until you get a lot of other training out of the way.

You're missing perception. For standard creature maneuver attacks, perception is just as effective as physical fitness for open rolls. If you're concerned about Minos and want to train more PF... this is likely a cheaper TP alternative.
http://www.krakiipedia.org/wiki/Creature_maneuver


Jyinaeir (at level 56), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 160 60
Combat Maneuvers...................| 158 58
Polearm Weapons....................| 216 116
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 143 43
Physical Fitness...................| 158 58
Dodging............................| 158 58
Magic Item Use.....................| 54 11
Harness Power......................| 157 57
Elemental Mana Control.............| 50 10
Mental Mana Control................| 50 10
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 105 25
Perception.........................| 70 15
Climbing...........................| 70 15
Swimming...........................| 40 8

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 30

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 28

A Note about my training though... I'm using a +32 lance with Troll-flares, physical multi-strike flares, and then a trip-add-on to the physical flares that's based on MOC Training... so I prioritized MOC training. If I didn't have that, I would have more Air Lore and Perception.

[Suppressed Poet]

Thanks Whirlin. Very helpful and appreciate the input.

Forgot to say I'm at .5x perception.

Regarding Tonis - I can absolutely live without it right now. With my current build, I just used it here and there for small swarms. I don't have the mana to use consistantly. At 75 I will though, and I want full 1x air lore by that time so I can swing my lance in 2 seconds.

I'm sold on air lore. I'll keep that at 30 ranks and that will free up 32 mtps. I can use that towards another spell rank.

I'm reluctant to drop bard songs below 35 for a few reasons. The primary one being, I think that was just enough to mitigate the multi song penalty so I'm not burning all my mana with renewal costs. Right now I'll be using 1003, 1007, 1010, 1019, and either 1006 or 1025 depending on what I hunt. (I know 1025 sucks, but I've actually found it really useful for mtks when their DS drops + cleaning up severed limbs). BTW, if anyone knows a good working lich script to start and stop 1003...please share. I have one but never was able to get it to work. I'm too lazy to do that manually. Beyond multi song penalty, dropping bard songs will shorten my renewals and I'll lose some AS and DS. Last, I assume I'll get hit more and want 1040 + some mental control to shout out of oh shot situations in the near future.

Im not 100% sure yet on dodge. Sounds crazy but it just feels like I should be 1x and I think it's going to eff with my mental game if I am not. I'll need to play with the numbers and will do so this weekend.

On 410, I don't plan to use it now because of armor. I'd need another 30 ranks in armor if I was going to do so. I'm not sure how important that is, but I do have other crowd control options. I can Tonis for small ones and I have a nice script for an open 1030 cast playing my mastered crumhorn if I really needed to. Guess that will stay on the back burner for now.

Keep in mind this is going to be a huge adjustment for me. I've never done 2handers. My DS hunting right now is about 345 in offensive and 550 in stance defence...Im sure it will be a lot less now. It usually takes me I'd guess 5 swings on average to kill something though, so hopefuly that will be like 2 now. I can't wait to try it out.

[Whirlin]

I dunno... training for multi-song penalty implications just doesn't really seem worth it... You're getting -.5 upkeep per rank of bard... but then:
1006 grows at .125 upkeep
1010 grows at +.1 upkeep
1019 grows at +.1 upkeep

That's assuming we had the equation right on that thread a few months back.

So, if you're keeping those three up, you're losing out on .325 upkeep gains on the multi-song penalty... Meaning each rank is only decreasing mana costs by .175 mana per rank.

And plus, while 35 is a nice, rounded number... you should totally go for 36... not only is it a perfect square, but you'll get +1 AS, +1 DS from 1012 and 1010 respectively.

[XThorX]

Looking to do the same migration to polearms and just would like some advice on whether or not that's a valid plan based on this character's stats:

Name: X Race: Dark Elf Profession: Bard
Gender: X Age: X Expr: X Level: 51
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Constitution (CON): 69 (4) ... 69 (4)
Dexterity (DEX): 94 (32) ... 94 (32)
Agility (AGI): 97 (28) ... 97 (28)
Discipline (DIS): 71 (0) ... 71 (0)
Aura (AUR): 100 (35) ... 100 (35)
Logic (LOG): 52 (1) ... 52 (1)
Intuition (INT): 52 (6) ... 52 (6)
Wisdom (WIS): 77 (18) ... 77 (18)
Influence (INF): 100 (20) ... 100 (20)

Thanks ahead.

[Jeril]

Your stats look fine to swing polearms, if you ever cap you'll probably want to fix your stats though, your logic and wisdom are horrible.

[Suppressed Poet]

Alright...so I looked at dropping dodge to .75x. That would put me at 42 ranks as opposed to 55. I would gain 78/78 points. I'm too lazy to calculate dodge, but looks like I'd loss about 7ish DS in stance offensive best guess.

With those points I could get 2 more spell ranks and 10 ranks of PF. I could go with 33 bard songs and 30 MnE with this.

So to me, it just doesn't seem worth it. The problem when you start 2xing stuff is it gets really expensive, and because of the high training cost it offers diminishing roi.

So im keeping dodge at 1x. This is my new training plan. Very similar to the old one.

2x poles
60 ranks of armor
1x dodge
1x cman
1x PF
10 ranks MOC (probably wont pickup to 25 now until much later or post cap)
1x-1 HP
36 bard songs (throwing my saving from air lore here)
26 MnE
25 telepathy
30 air lore
20 climb
20 swim
.5x perception

I'm going to have to survive 4 levels without 430...I can do that just fine. Gives me a good short term goal to look forward to. In 8 levels Ill get 1040.

At the point I get 1040, which is 62, I'm going to stop spell training until my 70th train to drop back down to 1x spells. During that time I calculate I can squeeze in +32 air ranks bringing my total air lore to 62. From 70-75 I'll figure a way to get that to full 1x. If I have to borrow from dodge then, I will.

From 75 to cap, I can stop lore training all together. I'll still keep to 1x spells. Probably will be a straight 50/50 split between bard song and MnE. (50 ranks brings me max 1012 AS). From 75 up I think my main focus will be bringing PF at or near 2x and maybe perception to 1x. Also want 10-20 ranks in mental mana control. 15 manipulation would be nice for targeted 1030s, but ehh...that can be post cap. Same goes for further armor traing...nice to be able to 410, but I can do without i suppose. That's a long ways away so this whole paragraph is speculation and rough guesstimating at best.

[Suppressed Poet]

Holy #*+£...I love this build. Most things die in one swing. Harbingers and MTKs I don't have to 1005...just swing and watch them drop like flies. My sustained AS with wizard strength broke 400 (404 right now). It's really fun.

The time it takes me to fry is nonsense. This must be a little taste of what the pure bards talk about.

Also, charge is really effective albeit a little costly and 7 seconds of rt. It shows a +10 bonus to what I was hunting. Do giants get a bonus to charge?

[Suppressed Poet]

Need advice now on how to allocate my extra points. Below is my current training:

XXX (at level 57), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 160 60 60
Combat Maneuvers...................| 159 59 59
Polearm Weapons....................| 218 118 118
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 50 10 10
Physical Fitness...................| 165 65 65
Dodging............................| 159 59 59
Harness Power......................| 158 58 58
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 120 30 30
Sorcerous Lore - Necromancy........| 0 0 0
Mental Lore - Telepathy............| 105 25 25
Perception.........................| 120 30 30
Climbing...........................| 105 25 25
Swimming...........................| 90 20 20

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 30 30

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 36 36
Training Points: 7 Phy 6 Mnt


So I have a few options... obviously getting 1040 is pretty big, so my first option is to throw more into spells and I can cut that down to getting 1040 in 2 levels instead of 4. The other option is I would like to pickup arcane symbols so I can utilize for some outside spells. The third option is to bring up perception to 1x for some additional maneuver defense.

I'm starting to hunt Illoke semi-regularly. No deaths yet but had some close calls and oh fuck sigil of escape moments.

[Whirlin]

The core training looks pretty well set, now we're adding the bells and whistles.

You've done well in maintaining a balance between PTP and MTP, so lets maintain that balance.

For PTP excess, you can continue to finish climbing/swimming to 50... although, the returns of that pretty much won't be realized right now, so you may be better off waiting.
An alternative PTP dump would be MoC at 7/3 cost... Hitting 30 ranks is alright... But, focused mStrike kinda has the RT of 2 normal melee attacks. Therefore, you start to get awesome returns at 55 ranks of MoC, where you're doing 3 focused strikes in the time of 2. With a pole, not much is living beyond that... I think my maximum damage was to a blighted forest boar at something like 430 total damage on an mstrike

For MTP, I feel like you already you know your options...
You've been doubling in spells for the last few levels... If 1040 is that important to you, and you think that'll be your highest return... keep at it.
If you ever plan on eventually swapping to sonic (like when you hit 50 bard ranks in another dozen levels), you'll want to up that air lore.
If you fight anything that can maneuver anything ever, you want to up that perception to a full 1x.
Other things to consider would be MMC to utilize song of unraveling more effectively, and keep your mana up during your hunts.
I'm also a big advocate of like, 10 ranks of MIU for haste imbeds... Because even with 1035... why not?


Personally, My bard is 61, and I heavily trained in MoC at the expense of perception (due to having a trip-flares based on MoC on my weapon). And now it's hurting me drastically due to the lack of perception... I've prioritized perception with every discretionary TP, and I may be able to get it up to 1x in as little as 3-4 levels (Helps that I converted like, 300 MTP to PTP). After that, I'll work on air lore to hit 1x when I hit 50 bard ranks... it'll all comes together around level 80.

[Suppressed Poet]

Thanks Whirlin. Are you certain perception is equal to PF in terms of maneuver defense? I thought it was a secondary factor.

For my PTPs, I've been dumping the extras to PF. I am GoS plus a giant, so every bit helps. Everyone talks about the dreaded illoke stone hand, but so far it hasn't been a big issue. I just 1005 real quick and avoid fighting two at once. The times I have been caught by the stone hand I was able to recover or sig escape out of it, but no instant deaths. May just be lucky so far.

Regarding MoC, it seems pointless. I have those 10 ranks for FoF. My unfocused mstrike is 10 seconds of RT...way too much for me. I barely have the agidex for 5 sec lance swing (I use a lot of enhancives). My sustained AS with major band is 421 right now. Things die in 1 swing...2 at most if I hit a limb or something. I'll save MoC for later.

I do use my sonic now, so in addition to unlocking 1040 every 2 bard songs nets me 1 AS. Seems like that is the best choice right now to focus on that.

Maybe I should do MIU instead of scrolls. I do have a great pocket mage, and I have a ton of Mage rechargeables and blank imbedibles I collected over the years. That's probably the smarter choice and I'll add that after 1040. 506, 905, and 913 would be helpful. Plus that would add to durations if I use a statue or what not. Also, arcane decoy would help a bunch because the damn mystics dispell.

At 74 or 75 I am fixskilling anyways to pickup air lore to 75 ranks. This is, like you said, which bells and whistles to choose until that time.

Also - I absolutely love poles and glad I switched. Things die so quick and I fill my head faster then my first round of GoS buffs have a chance to dissipate. I'll likely take this to cap. May go back to OHE/Shield at cap. A sonic tower with buckler dodge penalty, plus my flare frequency with sonic flares at 1 sec. We shall see then.

[Whirlin]

According to the Simu post, Physical Fitness >= Perception ... so I think it'll depend maneuver to maneuver. Moreover, the TP cost of the first rank of Perception is 75% of the cost of the second rank of physical fitness... Assuming mental starved... if Physical starved, we're looking at about 18% of the cost.

I agree with MoC... Although, 3 focused hits is nice once you reach that level.... It's just a heavy investment to reach it. PF is probably one of the better uses of Physical Points.

Not sure why you'd fixskills, I'm not sure where the additional TP would come from... I wouldn't say you have any horribly trained things listed to pull the TP out of... Once you hit 1040, you can easily invest the reduction to 1x Spell Research reclaimed TP into Air Lore... That alone would net about about 25 ranks of Lore. The additional flare rate would be nice too.

[Suppressed Poet]

Not sure why you'd fixskills, I'm not sure where the additional TP would come from... I wouldn't say you have any horribly trained things listed to pull the TP out of... Once you hit 1040, you can easily invest the reduction to 1x Spell Research reclaimed TP into Air Lore... That alone would net about about 25 ranks of Lore. The additional flare rate would be nice too.

Really because I can and I'll have one to use. Instead of scaling back spells, I could just continue on and/or bring up perception with no lore training. I fixskilled on the annual day in May or whatever, and since then I leveled 3 times. It is going to take me awhile to reach 74 and I'll save the fixskill strategically for that big turning point.

Might as well use those mtps on the most beneficial to right now, and my greatest return is not air lore. The % increase to sonic weapon 2nd flares is my only benefit, and for 8 mtps I am only getting a fraction of 1%. Plus, I have no problems killing things with a lance that the flares are just added gravy. Perception and/or more spells will help out much more until that level.

[Suppressed Poet]

The other interesting thought would be 15 in manipulation just to eff around in, but ehh...for the occasional fun time use I like 1035 best.